[NYTr] FAS Secrecy News - 01/09/2008

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2008, Issue No. 4
January 9, 2008

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Support Secrecy News: http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp

**	ADVISORY BOARD URGES DECLASSIFICATION REFORMS
**	NSDD-113 ON SECURITY OF GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS

ADVISORY BOARD URGES DECLASSIFICATION REFORMS

In a report issued today, a Presidential advisory board proposed dozens
of steps to promote a more rational, uniform and productive process for
declassification of historical records.

Declassification policy must "take into account the interest of
ordinary citizens in having as 'thorough, accurate, and reliable' a
record of their country's history as soon as it is possible to provide
it," wrote Martin Faga, acting chair of the Public Interest
Declassification Board (and former director of the National
Reconnaissance Office) in his transmittal letter.

Towards that end, the Board calls for establishment of a National
Declassification Center to coordinate declassification activity, to
improve its efficiency, and to stabilize the declassification program.

It urges new procedures to identify historically significant categories
of records, and to prioritize their declassification.

The Board advocates expedited processing of Presidential records, and
asks the President to affirm that historical editions of the
President's Daily Brief are subject in principle to declassification, a
position strongly opposed by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The report perceptively reaches deep into the nuts and bolts of
classification policy to recommend that information classified as
"Formerly Restricted Data" under the Atomic Energy Act be handled as
defense information subject to declassification under the President's
executive order, a step that would significantly expedite the
declassification of historical records pertaining to nuclear weapons
policy.

The report adopts one recommendation that was advocated by the
Federation of American Scientists in testimony before the Board last
year, namely the creation and release of a public database of
declassification activities.

"All departments and agencies should be required to record
declassification decisions on a single computerized system... and
within five years to make databases available to the public that
contain at least pertinent information such as the titles of the
documents and the locations where they are available," the report
states.

Many of the Board's dozens of recommendations seem thoughtful,
well-founded and readily achievable.  It is uncertain, though, whether
they will find a receptive audience in the final year of the Bush
Administration or a champion in the current Congress.

"Improving Declassification," a report to the President from the Public
Interest Declassification Board, was principally authored by L. Britt
Snider, the Board chairman until last October.  A copy is posted here:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/pidbreport.pdf

The Board's own web site is here:

     http://www.archives.gov/declassification/pidb/

NSDD-113 ON SECURITY OF GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS

In a recently declassified 1983 directive, President Reagan ordered
steps to improve the security of government communications.

"Mobile and fixed communications systems used by key U.S. Government
officials in the Nation's capital and surrounding areas are especially
vulnerable to intercept and exploitation by foreign intelligence
services," the President wrote.

National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 113 was classified Top
Secret until last year, when it was released in full.  A copy was
obtained by researcher Michael Ravnitzky.

See "Security of Communications Systems Used by Key Government
Officials," NSDD-113, November 17, 1983:

     http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-113.pdf

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691